ASHGABAT — Syria, Sudan, and Mali are the biggest refugee hotspots, the UN refugee commissioner said Friday at a conference in Turkmenistan, calling on governments to help alleviate a humanitarian crisis.

The conference on refugees in the Muslim World opened Friday in the capital of Central Asia’s most isolated country, organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

In 2011, the 57 members of the OIC took in 17.6 million people, including refugees and asylum seekers, said UNHCR’s high commissioner Antonio Guterres in his opening remarks.

“The three most acute crises are Syria, Sudan, and Mali,” he later told AFP on the sidelines of the conference, stressing the importance of finding the money to assist refugees amid an economic slowdown.

Regarding Syria, “Turkey is currently accepting 25,000 refugees, and 30,000 in Jordan need assistance,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the conference would help “mobilize the region’s governments” to “find the solutions to protect the refugees.” — AFP